Mutated Music
by Lamie
Summary: Seriana is an excellent musician- too excellent for her own good. Her mutant powers begin to manifest in a strange way. Now she's at the Xaiver Institute to learn how to control this mutation. WARNING: heterosexual relationships!
1. I

Hello everyone! This is my first X-Men: Evolution fic. This is actually the first fan fic I've published that doesn't have Sailor Moon or Tenchi in it. I'm breakin' away from the anime! I know it doesn't seem like X-Men at the beginning, but I swear it is. I hope you like it...   
  
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+  
  
Seriana clutched angrily at the hem of her red skirt. 'How could he?' she thought, while gritting her teeth together. 'On tonight of all nights.' She sat on the hard blue chair, waiting for her time. Normally, at a time like this, she would be concentrating on the notes- trying to review them in her mind, making sure she knew each one perfectly, one last time before her solo. This time, her mind was somewhere else, on the pain she had been delt earlier that night.   
  
She heard her name introduced through the microphone by her band director. Seriana began to stand up, and only remembered that her flute was still in her lap when it began to roll off as she stood. She quickly grabbed it and solomnly walked to the music stand in the center of the stage. "Psst! Your music!" the boy who was second chair flute called after her. She turned around and grabbed the paper in his outstreched hand. She set the paper down on the stand and stood poised to begin playing. The song, which she formerly regarded as beautiful and flowing, suddenly sounded violent and angry. Of course, her musical ability was so incredible and superior to anyone else in the huge auditorium- excluding her band director- that it didn't matter the attitude she gave to the music, it came out as an amazing sound anyway. Seriana's first concern at the time was her music. She concentrated on fulfilling every note to make a flowing sound. But slightly behind those thoughts, were thoughts of hate. After more than two years... She'd given to him her time, her money, her heart, her body and her soul. And then, not even three minutes before she had to be on stage, he pulled her aside and said some words to her. Seriana couldn't remember them exactly at this moment- her mind was so confused, full of music and hatred.   
  
As the piece she was playing grew from a soft piano section to a loud forte section, she thought more and more about why he broke up with her. She'd recently seen him talking to Rebecca Williams in government class. And not just talking... flirting. She passed it off as talking at the time, but now the truth was revealed. She could tell what would happen the next day at school. Instead of leaning against Seriana's locker, he would be at Rebecca's. She puffed her cheeks up more and her fingers sped along the silver keys. B flat, F, B flat, C...   
  
She wished something could happen....  
  
D flat, E flat, D flat, C, A flat....  
  
Something that would make him suffer as she was suffering...  
  
B flat, C, D flat, C, B flat...  
  
And to Rebecca, too...  
  
A flat, B flat, C, D flat, C....  
  
Teach her not to flirt with someone who already has a girlfriend...  
  
If only something could happen....  
  
Ritard to end, and fermata...  
  
She held the note out longer than she had before. Somehow, she felt less angry, more fulfilled as she finished her song. She smirked and lowered her flute as the audience applauded. She saw her best friend Eponine clapping and smiling wildly in the second row. Seriana picked up the music from the stand and returned to her chair. Instead of feeling angry as she did before, a strange sense had swept over her; like she really needed to say "Take that."   
  
Take that, Paul. I played perfectly without you. Rot in hell for all I care.   
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
After the concert was over, Seriana didn't even wait for Eponine before leaving. She didn't even bother to put her flute back in its case. As soon as possible, she just ran out of the school to her car, carrying her keys, a music folder, her flute, and its case. She threw them in the backseat before getting in the driver's seat, starting the engine and driving away.  
  
Her car wasn't the most reliable thing on four wheels, but it ran decently, and she got it from her uncle for free when he bought a new car. The trick to keep it from stalling at stop lights was to press on the brake and the gas at the same time.   
  
On the way home, she turned the radio on and sang along. She had a beautiful singing voice. Not only was she first chair flute in the school's symphonic band, but she was also in the somewhat exclusive Belles and Beaux, the highest rung in the school's vocal music program. Seriana was very musically talented. In addition to flute and vocals (both soprano and alto), she played violin, piano and guitar, and she even wrote her own music.   
  
At the age of 3, when most little girls wanted to take ballet lessons, Seriana wanted to learn piano. She started singing lessons at age 6, and flute a few months after that. She started learning to play violin as a high school freshman, and after that she started to teach herself guitar. Now, as a high school junior, she took a part time job at a music store, giving piano and flute lessons. Occasionally, the guitar teacher there would help her with her guitar. He was always amazed at how far she could progress just by herself. She had full confidence that she could pick up almost any instrument and learn to play a simple song within an hour; no one doubted this.   
  
As she was driving home, she was pleased to see that she didn't hit a single red light. That made her drive a whole lot simpler  
  
She pulled into the driveway of a house that had, 10 years ago, looked nice. 10 years ago, a nice family consisting of a mother, a father, and a seven year old girl had lived there. But nine and a half years ago, the mother left. The father and the daugher were by themeselves. Now, the once beautiful garden on the side of the house had been abandoned and overcome by weeds. The paint was chipping off of the house, many of the shingles on the roof had fallen off, and the grass was desperate for a lawn mower.  
  
Seriana parked her car in the two-car garage and saw that her dad was either still at work, or still out drinking. It was probably the latter. She grabed only her flute and left the case and music in the backseat. She calmly walked to the back door of the house, and pulled a key out to unlock it. She kept her keys out once she was inside, and walked through the familiar dark house to her own room. She then used one of the keys to unlock her bedroom door. She had kept a lock on it for the past couple years. Ever since she had earned enough money to aquire a small multimedia studio consisting of a computer, sterio and 61-key keyboard, she had feared that her father would enter her room and sell something so he could buy more booze. She couldn't stand living where she had to lock up her belongings from her own father. She was very confident that after high school, she could get a music scholarship and finally move away.   
  
She set her flute down on the bed, and sat in the little area on the floor that she always sat in. She had everything arranged so that the computer was to the left of her, while the keyboard was in front of her, with the sterio behind that. The computer, sterio and keyboard were all hooked up to each other. Her skills with technology was the only thing that came remotly close to her music skills. She took off her black shoes she wore for the concert and threw them into a laundry basket near the door; her pantyhose soon followed. She flipped on the keyboard and lie down on the floor, her head resting on a soft red pillow while her left hand rested on the keys of the keyboard. She began to play the beginning of as song she was in the process of writing, but shortly after, she'd fallen asleep.  
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
The sun had begun to rise and shine through Seriana's window. The light awoke her. She glanced over at the clock. The red numbers read 5:36. Her back hurt from sleeping on the floor. She stood up and began her routine to get ready for school.   
  
When she was about 3 blocks away from the school, she noticed that the amout of cars in the area was abnormally large. When she got closer, she began to see the flashing red and blue lights of the police cars and ambulances. There were also news vans from all three local TV stations. The first thing she thought of was that yet another football player was busted for drugs. That would make the 5th one in the past school year. She pulled into the student parking lot and parked in her usual area. She stepped out of the car and hoisted her backback over her shoulders. She was a few feet from the back doors by the cafeteria when a strong voice said "Whoa, whoa- You a student here?" Seriana turned to see a police man approaching her.  
  
"See the books?" she asked sarcastically while pointing her thumb to her bag.   
  
"We've had reporters posing as students to try and get in."   
  
"Well, I'm a student." She pulled the bag off her shoulder and unzipped it to show that there indeed were books inside.  
  
"Alright, go on- get to class."  
  
'Christ, what manners,' she thought. 'I don't even get an apology.'  
  
She walked through the halls and saw and saw right away everything was different. As she walked by the small cliques of people gathered at lockers, their voices changed from loud and boistorous to hushed whispers. She heard one voice whisper "There, that's his girlfriend..." Seriana walked faster to her locker and quickly put in the combination. She started to take out her chemistry book when she saw the familiar face of her friend Eponine. She had tears in her eyes "Ryujinn-" Ryujinn was the nickname Eponine adoped in 7th grade. At the time, the thing she loved more than anything were Japanese dragons. Ryujinn is a Japanese word, translating to "dragon god." The nickname was only used by Seriana, but it lasted for over four years.  
  
"Ryujinn, what's going on around he-"  
  
Her words were cut short as Eponine threw her arms around Seriana in a hug. "Ryu! What-"  
  
"I am so sorry."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
Ryu released her hug and took a step back. "You mean... you mean, you don't know?"  
  
"No! What are you talking about? What's with the police and reporters?! Why is everyone looking at me weird?"  
  
"Oh boy. Um, I think you better sit down..."  
  
Seriana didn't want to hear any news that started with "you better sit down." Ryu led her friend out of the hallway and into the empty physics room. Seriana sat in a desk near the door.   
  
"Um..." Ryu pursed her lips. "Well, uh... This morning, Madame Richter opened up the French room, and she found.. there were two dead bodies in there."  
  
"Oh my god!" Seriana's hand flew up to cover her mouth."Wh-what happened? Who were they?"  
  
"Well, remember that girl from our government class, Rebecca Williams?"  
  
"Oh my god!!" Seriana repeated.  
  
"And well... there's really no way to put this lightly. Remember how you thought that Paul was cheating on you with her? Well, it looks like he was. Um... he's dead too."  
  
Seriana didn't say anything. Her eyes opened wide and she looked like she was going to puke. She hiccupped once. Twice. A total of 14 times before she said anything. Her breathing was abnormal. "Were they like... The French room during intermission of the school play?"   
  
During last year's production of The Sound of Music, two of the stage crew went to the French room during intermission and had sex. It totally grossed out all the French students and Madame Richter had to hold class in the library for a week before everyone felt safe to return to the room.  
  
Ryu hesitated for a little bit. "Yes," she said eventually.  
  
"God... what happened?"   
  
"Nobody really knows for sure. I mean, I guess the police do, but they haven't said anything."  
  
She chuckled a little bit through the shock. "Why is it always the French room? Don't these people have houses? I wonder how long Madame's going to have to hold classes in the librar..."  
  
And then she remembered: Last night during her solo, Seriana had wished so hard that something bad would happen to the two of them. Her breathing became deeper and even more irregular. "Oh no..." She had never felt so much guilt for anything in her life before that moment. "I don't believe this is happening. Ryu, I gotta get out of here." She hastily stood up from the desk, almost tipping it over as she stood up. She ran out of the chassroom and to the main stairway. She took the stairs two at a time as she ran up to the hallway where the French room was located. The entire hallway was blocked off, all the classrooms and all the lockers. Near the end, she could barely make out the poster on the open door- "Bienvinue a la classe de Francais" it read- through all the police officers standing around. There were other police officers standing closer to keep kids from getting into the hallway, and she could see that one at a time, with a police escort, the students with lockers in that corridor were allowed to get their books.   
  
'Why would they still have school when something like this happened?!' Seriana screamed inwardly. She stood there in front of the yellow police tape for the longest time.   
  
"Are you ok, miss?" one of the officers finally asked her.  
  
"Is Paul Hill dead?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the door at the end of the hall.   
  
"I-" the man began to speak.  
  
"Is my boyfriend dead?!" she screamed, turning several student's attention to her. "He IS dead! He's DEAD!" Seriana closed her eyes and shoted at the top of her lungs, "HE'S DEAD AND I KILLED HIM!!" Her body went limp and she fell to the floor in a lump before anyone could catch her.  
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
Seriana groaned. Her left leg felt... wrong. She slowly, weakly, opened her eyes. A bright white ceiling stared down at her, and a familiar voice spoke to her. "Oy, thank god you're alright!" It was Ryu.  
  
"R-Ryu? What happened?" she turned her head to her right and saw her friend.  
  
"You passed out. They were having trouble reviving you, so they brought you here."  
  
"My leg feels funny."  
  
"You probably twisted it when you fell. You were at an odd angle. I should go get somebody- tell them you're awake."  
  
Ryuujin stood up from the chair and walked into the hallway. She was only gone for a few seconds before a doctor, a nurse and two cops, one male and one female, walked in. Ryu wasn't with them though. The doctor performed a few tests- checking for a concussion, ect- while a police officer asked her some questions.  
  
"You say Paul Hill was your boyfriend?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Before you passed out, you said that you killed him. What did you mean by that?"  
  
"Well, he kind of broke up with me last night before the band concert. A-and when I was playing my solo, I wished that something bad would happen to him and Rebecca."  
  
"What time was this concert over?"  
  
"8:30."  
  
"ETD was 7:45," the woman cop whispered to the first. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with wishing something bad would happen to a guy who breaks up with you. There's no way this girl had anything to do with his death."  
  
"Yeah, alright. We'll keep in touch," the first cop said before leaving.  
  
"I'm sorry for what happened," the other added before leaving.  
  
Ryu walked in just as the doctor was finishing up with his tests. "Well, Seriana, you seem to be fine. I think we can release you by tomorrow."  
  
"Tomorrow? Why can't I leave now?"  
  
"We'd like to see if your leg is broken first. I can get you in for an X-ray in a few hours. Until then, get some rest and try to keep your mind off of things."  
  
"Thanks," she mumbled.  
  
"We've tried contacting your father. No such luck." Ryu sighed as soon as the doctor and nurse left.  
  
"Lets hope he realises I'm gone before I get home."  
  
Eponine weakly smiled. "I better go call my mom and tell her you're alright. In the meantime, you rest, K?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Ryu walked out of the room, with her long white-blond hair trailing behind her.   
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
Seriana woke up and looked around. The room hadn't changed any. She guessed that she couldn't have been asleep for more than 5 minutes. She couldn't sleep. Thoughts of what could have happened in the French room the night before kept plaguing her mind. Not so much of what Rebecca and Paul had been doing, but more of how they died. Seriana just had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that she had caused them to die. A psychologist would tell her that it was guilt. But she had felt guilt before. Everyone's felt guilt, but what she felt wasn't just that. In her mind, she was responsible.   
  
"Knock, knock?"  
  
Seriana looked up to see Ryu standing in the door way. She hadn't knocked, she had only said knock.   
  
"Come on in... I can't sleep any." She pulled herself into a semi-sitting position.   
  
"That's what I thought." She walked into the room and sat on the chair by the bed. "You feel guilty about wishing something would happen, don't you?"  
  
Seriana opened her eyes wide. "How do you kn-"  
  
"I was talking with the cops outside."  
  
"I don't just feel guilty. I mean, I feel like I actually did it- even though its physically impossible. Do you know what happened to them yet?"  
  
"Uh, no..." Ryu said nervously. "What do you think you'd do if it turns out you actually did kill them?"  
  
Seriana stared at her friend. Eponine would never say anything like that. Well, maybe she would in a situation like this. They'd never been in a situation like this before. "I... I don't know. Wonder how I did it, I suppose."  
  
"What would you say if I told you that you were the one who killed them? That you have the power to be able to do something like that?"  
  
Seriana didn't say anything. She was so confused. Ryujinn wasn't acting like herself at all. "What the hell are you talking about?" She asked so calmly, when inside she was about to burst with confusion and anger. She tightly cluched the blanket covering her legs in her fists.   
  
"You remember that thing on the news about a couple months back? About the mutants?"  
  
Seriana's face remained unchanged. It was impossible for her to look any more shocked.   
  
"You're one of them. Last night, you finally tapped into your potential."  
  
"Seri, who are you talking to?" a familiar voice spoke from the doorway.   
  
Seriana turned her head to the doorway... and saw Ryu standing there. Her eyes whipped back to the chair next to her. Two Ryus. This was impossible. "Holy god..." The Ryu sitting in the chair stood up from the chair so fast that it tipped over. She sped to the door, knocking the other Ryu down before dashing into the hallway. "What the hell is going on here?" Seriana whispered to herself.   
  
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+  
  
That's a pretty long first chapter. Actually, it's longer than all of my fanfics, except for Planets Collide.   
  
I always worry when I make original characters. I'm worried I'm creating a Mary Sue. Please, please, please tell me... Does it seem like Seriana is a Mary Sue? God, I knew I shouldn't have written this.  
  
Reviews, si vous plait. 


	2. II

For your reading pleasure, here is chapter two.  
  
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The Ryu from the doorway stood up. "Ok, tell me I'm not seeing things. Did I just run by here? Or am I finally having a nervous breakdown?"  
  
"No... there was another you."  
  
"Criminy, it musta been my doppleganger!" She walked closer to Seriana's bed. "I always knew that I had one. Remember, I told you a long time ago that I have one-"  
  
"She was pretending to be you."  
  
"I knew it! She's trying to take over my life! She's gonna kill me and take over my life!"  
  
Seriana didn't know if Ryu was joking or was serious. Ryu had always been a little paranoid.   
  
"She talked about mutants," Seriana said flatly.  
  
"What, like those people on TV who can do funky stuff?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Maybe my doppleganger is one of 'em. Maybe she can look like other people. But then that means my real doppleganger is still out there somewhere... What exactly did she say about these mutants?"  
  
"That I'm one of them."  
  
Ryu was quet for a while. "Whoa. For real?"  
  
Seriana nodded and shifted her weight around in the bed. Her leg hurt to move.  
  
"So, like, what funky stuff can you do?"  
  
"Aparently kill people... since that's what I did last night."  
  
"Seri, you don't blame yourself for what happened, do you? Because I found out what happened. You know how the French ceiling always drips with water whenever it rains? Well, aparently after the storm we had yesterday afternoon, part of the ceiling went and a beam in the celing fell and... well... yeah."  
  
"Fine, so then I made the celing collapse."  
  
"Seri! You had nothing to do with it."  
  
"You don't know that!" She shrieked. "You don't know how badly I wanted something to happen to them! How good I felt when my song was over- like they got what they deserved!"  
  
"Fine then. You say you made that ceiling fall? Do something right now. Prove it to me."  
  
"I'm not angry now like I was last night. It won't work." She made up an excuse that made sense.  
  
"See, you can't do anything. It's just a combination of guilt and a faulty ceiling."  
  
Seriana began to wish that she could prove to Ryujinn that it was her. She wanted to make something else happen. Something smaller, of course. Make a lamp tip over, or a glass of water spill. She concentrated and tried to make something happen, anything. Nothing.  
  
"I'm going to try and call your dad again." Ryu walked out of the room. Seriana had a feeling she wasn't going to be back for a while.   
  
She just sat there in the hospital bed, thinking about a hundred things at once. If only the Ryu double would come back and explain some things to her. She made up a list of questions in her mind: "Why can't I make anything happen now? Why could I do what I did last night? Why do you look like Ryu? Are you her doppleganger? Are you a mutant, too? Am I really a mutant? What can I do? What should I do? Will you help me?"   
  
She twirled a small lock of her black hair around her left index finger- a nervous habit she had developed in 5th grade. She sat alone for almost ten minutes before a nurse came into her room. "We're ready to have you come down for x-rays now."  
  
It wasn't a fun process, getting the x-rays done. When they put her in a wheelchair to take her down for the x-ray, she could see that her ankle was already beginning to swell up to the size of a bowling ball. Seriana had twisted her ankle pretty bad before, and it looked similar to this. She guessed that the whole x-ray thing would be a bust, because there was no way it was broken. After more than an hour of waiting, x-rays, and more waiting, Seriana was finally wheeled back up to her room. She didn't see Ryu anywhere in the halls.  
  
It was almost 3 pm before anyone entered her room. "We've finally got ahold of your father," the same nurse that took her to her x-rays said. "He's on his way down to see you and fill out some paperwork."  
  
"Is my friend still around?"   
  
"Girl with real light blonde hair?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Haven't seen her since a little before I took you down for x-rays."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I'm sure she'll be back. She was real worried about you when you first came in."  
  
Seriana smiled weakly with the right corner of her mouth. The nurse walked out of the room and Seriana was alone again.   
  
She began to hum a few lines from an Evanescence song. "Everyone leaves me stranded, forgotten, abandoned, left be-" she stopped when she heard a rattling noise from the other side of the room, near the window. Unable to locate the source of the noise, she continuted with her song. "Ooh, can't you see, all along it was-" She stopped short when the rattling started up again. This time she looked over and saw what it might have beem. A plastic cup sitting on the window sill was on the edge, very close to falling over. She stared at the cup and continued singing, even though she didn't know all the words. "Ooh, Solitude, something something me something you. Ooh soli- AIEE!!!" She stopped singing and shreiked as the cup fell to the floor with a clatter. She remained quiet for a little bit, wondering if anyone heard her yell. After a minute or two, she guessed that if anyone had heard her, they didn't care enough to check. She stared at the cup on the floor. She was a mutant, huh? She could make things happen... "Come here, cup!" she commanded. It didn't move. She felt stupid for talking to a cup.   
  
Seriana thought for a little bit.   
  
She never was very good with figuring things out.   
  
She was about to try singing again when there was a knock on the doorframe. Seriana turned her head from the cup to the door. She half hoped it would be her dad. Instead, there were three girls about her age that she didn't know. The tallest had long red hair, another had brown hair in a pony-tail, and the last had dark brown hair with white streaks in the front. "Hello," said the red head, closing the door behind her.  
  
"Hi," Seriana said, a bit impatient, waiting to see what they were doing.   
  
"I'm Jean, and this is Rogue-" she motioned to the one with the white streaks, "-and Kitty."  
  
Kitty smiled and said "Hi."  
  
"Hi," Seriana repeated, with a look on her face that said 'Explain why you are here.'  
  
"Um, have you maybe noticed anything... strange happening to you lately?" Jean asked.   
  
"Besides the fact that I most likely killed my boyfriend with a flute solo last night, no."  
  
All three looked shocked.   
  
"So you know what's goin' on, then," Rogue said in a thick southern accent.   
  
"Not at all. Since you kinda do, maybe you can help fill in the blanks?"  
  
"Well," Rogue began, "why don't you tell us exactly what's happened so far?"  
  
Seriana was hesitant at first, and was tempted to say "No, you tell me first!" but she eventually told of everything significant that had happened since the night before.   
  
When Seriana talked of when there were two Ryus, Kitty turned to the others and whispered loudly, "Mystique!"  
  
"She must be after her to join the Brotherhood!" Jean gasped.  
  
"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," Rogue grumbled to herself, almost so that no one could hear her.   
  
"So, what's going on with me?" Seriana asked, sounding slightly annoyed.  
  
Jean spoke a little nervously, "Cerebro detected your mutant powers manifesting last night-"  
  
"So I AM one of these mutants," Seriana scowled.  
  
"Hey, It's not THAT bad," Kitty said optimistically.  
  
"Yeah, alright... So, what can I do?"  
  
"Er, well, it's kind of unclear at this point in time," Jean said smartly. "Since it appears that you've only used this power once, we really can't pinpoint that."  
  
"So basically, you don't know," Seriana smirked.  
  
"Basically. But..." Rogue paused for a bit before continuing, "Right now, it seems that you did kill Paul and Rebecca."  
  
"Why'd you have to go and say that?" Kitty frowned.  
  
"Cause it's true."  
  
Seriana bit her bottom lip and clutched the blankets on the bed tighter. "If I don't know my own abilities, how am I supposed to control it? How am I supposed to keep somethink like this from happening again?"  
  
"That's why we're here," Jean stated politely. "We're students at a school in New York where we are taught control over our powers. We've come to invite you to join us as soon as possible."  
  
"New York, huh?"   
  
All three girls nodded.  
  
"Could my friend visit?"  
  
"Uh-huh."  
  
"Could I bring my computer?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
"And my keyboard? And violin and flute and guitar?"  
  
"Uh, sure."  
  
"What's the catch? Tuition, binding contracts...?"  
  
"No, nothing like that. It's totally free."   
  
"Huh."  
  
"Do you think your parents would be ok with you moving to New York?" Jean asked.  
  
"My mom doesn't live with us anymore, and my dad probably won't even notice that I'm gone. I'll be surprised if he doesn't threaten to kick me out anyways, after this hospital bill."  
  
"Maybe, like, we should all talk to your dad anyways," Kitty suggested. "And he might want to meet the professor."  
  
"Professor?"  
  
"Professor Xavier. He founded the school."  
  
"Oh, well... When can I le-"  
  
There was a knock at the door, and everyone turned to look as it opened. "Seri?" A man poked his head in.  
  
"Hey dad." Seriana said cynically.  
  
"I'm real sorry 'bout what happened." He looked at the three standing girls a bit suspiciously before walking to the opposite side of the bed from them.   
  
"Uh huh. You weren't at the concert last night."   
  
"Your boyfriend dies and all you're worried about is that I wasn't at your concert last night?"  
  
"That's not my only worry, but that's one of them."  
  
"Look, I'm sorry I missed it. I'll make it to the next-"  
  
"Dad, can I go to school in New York?"  
  
"New York? I s'pose. It's not too far out of Pennsylvania. You mean for college?" He looked across the bed at the girls again. They were beginning to feel uncomfortable.   
  
"We'll jus' let ourselves out, then," Rogue said while edging to the now open door.  
  
"No. Stay. You can help explain," Seriana said to them. "Dad," she turned her head the other way. "Not for college. For now."  
  
"What's in New York that's not here?"  
  
Seriana took a deep breath and beagn to explain. She left out the part about how she wished something bad would happen to Paul and Rebecca, and just basically said that she discovered that she had powers. At that point, she began to stumble over her words and feel nervous as her father's face looked slightly disgusted. Luckily, Jean helped her out, and then continued on to tell about the school.   
  
"What'r ya gonna be doing there? Gonna cure her or somethin'?"  
  
"No, we're going to help her control this power. It's nothing that can be cured. It's a genetic mutation, it's part of who she is. "  
  
"Well, it didn't come from me. It's that damned mother of hers. Alright, fine, get me papers to sign or whatnot. Now maybe I can get some peace around the house. No more violin at 6 in the morning."  
  
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+  
  
Well, he's a loving and giving caregiver, ain't he? Review pweeeease. Te precor dulcissime supplex! (that's Latin for "pretty please with a cherry on top." I don't speak Latin, I speak English and un peu de Francais, but I found a list of strange sayings in Latin, so I decided to put it to use.) 


	3. III

Mutated Music  
  
by Lamie  
  
----+----+----+----+----+--Chapter 3--+----+----+----+----+----  
  
It turned out that Seriana was right, that her leg wasn't broken. She just had a pretty bad sprain. It was wrapped up in a flesh colored ace bandage. At least it was supposed to be flesh colored, it was much darker than her own skin. Seriana's great grandparents had come from Ireland, and the fair Irish skin tone had been passed down to her. She hated it. She always returned from band camp looking like a stop sign. She didn't understand the point of making the bandage the that color. Were they trying to make it blend into the skin? It was kind of silly considering that when you wear it on your ankle, over swelling even, it makes your ankle about three times larger than normal. She wasn't allowed to walk on it, so she pulled out the crutches she used last time she hurt her ankle and adjusted them to match the three and a half inches she had grown since she used them last.   
  
Seriana began getting ready to leave home as soon as she got home. She got out her biggest suitcase and set it open on her bed. It still had an empty can of silly string in it leftover from band camp. She threw the can out and began putting all of her clothes into it (the suitcase, not the can.) When the suitcase was full, she ran across the hall to her dad's room and began to search in the messy closet for his suitcase. She eventually found it and emptied its contents onto the piles of junk that were already in the closet. She had to fold everything up really small so that it would all fit in the two suitcases. Seriana was so excited that she was finally going to leave, that she didn't account for the fact that she's be staying home for about a week before leaving and that she shouldn't pack all of her clothes. When she needed to change her clothes, she grumbled as she opened the suitcase. All the clothes she had jammed in there sprung out when she opened it.   
  
She needed to get to the music store to tell the owner that she wouldn't be able to give any more lessons. She glanced at the clock, 9:00 AM. There would be no way that Jack, the guitar teacher, would be awake yet. He normally gave her a ride to the store for work when her car didn't work, but the odds of him being awake before noon were like a zillion to one. She decided to call him anyways. The phone rang fourteen times. She was just about to hang up when a groggy male voice answered the phone.   
  
"Jack?" Seriana asked.  
  
"Urr...."  
  
"Can you give me a ride to the music store?"  
  
"Unh..."  
  
"I'm on crutches and I'm not allowed to drive."  
  
"Eh.... I'll be over in ten minutes, Seri."  
  
She heard a click as he hung up. She was kind of surprised he could tell who was calling, especially since he just woke up. Almost a half hour passed and no one showed up. She called back. There were 8 rings before an answer. "Sorry, " he grumbled. "I fell back asleep."  
  
"Yeah, well, are you awake now?"  
  
"Most likely."  
  
"Jack, just get out of bed, put some pants on, and get in your car. You remember where I live?"  
  
"Uh, a house, right?"  
  
"On Belmonte street."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, I knew that. 10 minutes." And the phone clicked again as he hung up.   
  
Eleven minutes and 44 seconds later there was a knock on the door. Seriana was surprised; Jack usually just stayed in his car and honked the horn. She hobbled to the door and opened it. "What are you doing on the porch?" she asked him  
  
"Oh no," he said, still looking like he was asleep. "Don't tell me I dreamed you called me, and I came o-"  
  
"No, I called you."  
  
"Oh, good. Cause this wouldn't be the first time I dreamed someone told me to do something and I did it while I was awake."  
  
Seriana really didn't want to know what he had done. She limped out of the house, and began to reach to close the door, but Jack had done it for her. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Helping. Your foot's broken or something, right?"  
  
"Yeah," she said suspiciously.  
  
"So I'm helping."  
  
"You're freaking me out."  
  
Jack laughed. "Come on, I'll get you some breakfast on the way there."  
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
Seriana was clinging to the door handle with one hand, and her McDonald's coffee with the other. Jack wasn't exactly the best driver in the history of the world.  
  
"Aren't you going to ask me why I need a ride?"  
  
"Do you want to tell me why you need a ride?"  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"It seems that you want to show of that you're going there for a reason."  
  
Seriana scoffed. "No," she said in a disbeleiving tone intended to hide the truth.  
  
"Alright. Your call."  
  
There was almost a minute of silence.  
  
"It's cause I'm quitting." she took a sip of her coffee.  
  
"What?" The car swerved a little.   
  
"I'm moving to New York."  
  
"New York? What's in New York?!" Jack looked extremely hurt.  
  
"A school."  
  
"A school? School. You have to go to New York for school."  
  
"Yes." Seriana noticed that the car's speed was gradually increasing.  
  
"Why? What's so great there that you can't get here?"  
  
"Well, um, it's kind of... different. There isn't really a place like it around here..."  
  
"What, you mean... Is it like a music school?"  
  
Seriana didn't want to have to get into a long explination, so she just said "yes"  
  
"Jesus, Seri. You gotta lighten up about your music. You take it too seriously, and it's not fun anymore.  
  
"It's something you wouldn't understand, Jack." She glanced out the window and saw that he had pulled into the parking lot of the music store. Jack parked the car and got out before walking around to help Seriana get out. She had already opened the door and was trying to get the crutches out. Jack grabbed them and held them up for her. He tried to offer his hand to help her out, but she refused and insisted on doing it herself.   
  
"Look, Seri. You can't leave. You're my only girl friend." He quickly corrected himself after receiving a harsh look from her. "I don't mean girl friend, I mean... girl.. friend... Friend girl."  
  
Seriana stood on her good foot and grabbed the cruches. She started to hobble to the small building. Jack opened the door for her. The bell rang as she stepped into the air conditoned store. When you first walk in the shop, there are rows of guitar amps to the right. To the left, about 10 different drum sets were arranged in a way that made it seem like they weren't arranged at all. Behind the amps was the counter, where reeds, guitar pics and other small accessories sat in jars. Band instruments like trumpets and clarinets sat on display in the glass casin of the counter. Flier advertising instruments for sale, band gigs, and wanteds for tribute bands were taped to the glass case. At first glance, this seemed to be all the store had to offer, but to the left of the counter, there was a doorway leading to another room. On the left wall of this room were guitars of all varieties. Seriana didn't have a guitar of her own, but whenever she'd practice and Jack'd teach her, she would always choose the same one from the wall, a dark green electric guitar with silver tuning keys. The owner, Mike, always let her use it, even though he had a sign up that read "5 minute limit on guitars". To the right of the room, sat 5 or 6 keyboards, all extremly elaborate. They all sat on stands and had benches along with them. The keyboard Seriana owned was nowhere near as fancy as these ones. On the back wall, behind the keyboards, were several doors. They all led to small rooms, no bigger than 6'x6'. These rooms were used for lessons. Seriana taught in the room behind the third door to the left.   
  
As Seriana and Jack entered, a bell jingled and a man behind the glass counter stood up. "Jack! What are you doing here so early? Did you forget to go to bed again?"  
  
"Nah, just gave Seri a ride," he said as she hobbled in.  
  
"Christ, Seriana! What happened?"  
  
"Nothing serious, Mike. I gotta talk to you."  
  
"Uh, sure." He led her into the second room, to a bench by one of the keyboards. "Have a seat."  
  
Seriana decided to speak quickly and get it over with. "I'm moving to New York, so I've got to quit."  
  
"Qu... QUIT? Seriana, you're the best flute teacher I've ever had here. All your students love you. You can't just quit."  
  
"Look, if I could move to New York and still teach here, I would. But I can't."  
  
Mike sighed. "When are you leaving?"  
  
"About a week. That way I'll have time to tell my students when they come in."  
  
"We'll all miss you here. I'd try to convince you to stay, but you seem hell bent on going."  
  
"Thanks for understanding, Mike."  
  
----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----  
  
reviews, please. I really appreciate them  
  
hearts & hotard, Lamie 


	4. IV

Mutated Music  
  
by Lamie  
  
----+----+----+----+----+--Chapter 4--+----+----+----+----+----  
  
Everything was set. Seriana's bags had been packed. Her computer, sterio, and keyboard were securely packed in a large box and sent on ahead.   
  
On a warm, early May morning, a week after she had been released from the hospital, Seriana's father drove her to the train station. It had been raining for the past 4 days, but this morning it was actually clear and sunny. Puddles of water still remained on the platform. Seriana carefully set down her two huge suitcases and two instrument cases (flute & violin) on the red brick platform.  
  
She leaned aginst her crutches and stared down at the train tracks. The dirt underneath them was still wet. She was starting to have second thoughts about leaving. What did she have to stay for? Her father? Yeah, right. There was only one person she could really see herself staying for- Eponine. The two girls had exchanged their "I'm going to miss you so much... I'll call you every day, and on weekends you can visit... Blah blah blah" conversation the night before. They both figured that it would be a bad idea to say goodbye at the station because Seriana might miss her train amidst all the goodbyes.   
  
She looked over at her father; he was lighting a cigarette. Seriana frowned. Even though she had expected him to let her move out, she was upset about how quickly he had agreed. 'Don't show any love towards me or anything dangerous like that, dad,' she thought.   
  
A cloud of smoke from her father's cigarette was blown over to her direction.   
  
She glanced over to the newspaper machine setting next to the brick building of the train station. Through the glass window, she could see the small headline near the bottom of the front page reading "Cause of collapse of high school roof still mystery." Seriana hobbled over and jammed a quarter into the slot. The machine clanked as she opened it and took a paper out. She quickly glanced through the article. It spoke of the event that happened a week ago... The earlier theory that someone who was in the building for the band concert sabotauged the ceiling in the French room had been debunked... Still no explination as to why the roof fell... 2 teens dead... Memorial services would be held the next day. Tears began to form in Seriana's eyes. She had tried her very best not to think about what happened, about what she had done. That's how she delt with emotions such as sadness, she would ignore it. If she didn't think about it, then she wouldn't have to deal with it. Now that she read about it in the paper, she began to feel a sinking feeling in her chest. She was going to miss Paul's memorial service. Maybe that was for the best. She didn't want to have to see everyone crying over him. She didn't want to have to see the damage she had done.   
  
Seriana's sadness quickly turned to anger as she began to wonder why Paul's parents hadn't told her about the memorial service earlier. 'I was his frikkin girlfriend,' she scowled inwardly. 'I know he broke up with me, but his parents didn't know that. Snobs... don't even tell their son's girlfriend about his memorial service. I have to find out through the damn newspaper.' Inlaid in the article were two pictures: a smiling Paul, a smiling Rebecca. They were the pictures that would have been taking up less than 1/16 of a page in the yearbook. Thanks to Seriana, they would now probably have an entire memorial page. Seriana tore article out of the newsprint, shoved it in her pocket, and threw the rest of the paper to the ground in a clump.   
  
She looked up at the clock on the building. It read 3:35. The train was due to stop at the station at 8:20. A birds nest resting on the hour hand told Seriana that the clock hadn't worked for at least a few months.  
  
There was a rock on the ground in front of her. Normally, she would have kicked it so that it would go flying onto the tracks, but with the crutches, it would be more trouble than it's worth.   
  
She was getting really impatient. She wondered if anyone else would be getting on the train at this stop, and if so, where were they?  
  
Her father said nothing the entire time they waited on the platform. He staired straight ahead over the tracks, and smoked his cigarettes. Seriana had promised herself that she would never smoke because it would interfere with her flute playing. Now, if she didn't play an instrument that required air, that would be a whole other story.   
  
The sound of a train horn sounded throughout the area. "Finally," she sighed.   
  
Another five minutes and the train was slowly coming to a halt in front of the station. Her father dropped the cigarette to the ground and stepped on it to extinguish it. He walked over and picked up her bags without a word.   
  
She wondered if he was doing the same thing that she was doing internally. Maybe he had the same attitude: If you don't acknolege that a person is leaving, then you won't miss them.   
  
Her father handed the two bags and instruments up to the employee on the train.  
  
"Well, bye dad."  
  
"Bye. Um, have fun and... be careful. And, uh..."  
  
"To thine own self be true, right dad?"  
  
"Sure. Well, uh..." He hesitatantly opened up his arms and hugged his daughter. It was awkward- in more ways than one. Have you ever tried to hug someone on crutches?  
  
Seriana nodded in to say "goodbye" again.   
  
She was just about to head up the stairs into the train, when a voice called out from the doors of the station. "Seri! Seri, wait!" She craned her neck around to see who it was. Jack was running towards the train, or at least running to the best of his ability. He was carrying a huge cardboard box- tall, but not very deep- and every once in a while his knees or legs would hit the box and his running would be slowed.  
  
"Jack, what are you doing here?"  
  
"I-" he gasped when finally reaching her. "I came to..." He held out the box and said "This is for you."  
  
"What is it?" Seriana's blue eyes opened wide.   
  
"It's your... uhm," he began to pry at the cardboard lid, trying to open it.  
  
"Hurry up. The trains going to leave."  
  
Seriana's dad lit another cigarette.  
  
Jack finally succeeded in opening the box. He reached inside and grabbed something. The box slowly fell away from whatever Jack was holding up inside. The box fell to the ground in a puddle, revealing the green guitar Seriana had always practiced on. "It's for you. Goodbye present."  
  
"Jack... Oh my god... I can't... This is for me?"  
  
"Uh huh."  
  
"Oh wow. Thank you." She tried her best to hug him. Even though he was at least 5 inches taller than her, and she was on crutches, it wasn't very awkward.  
  
"Sorry I couldn't get you a case or an amp or anything, but it was hard enough for-"  
  
"That doesn't matter. Thank you so much."  
  
"Well, you better get going. Don't want the train to leave without you."  
  
Seriana smiled and hopped up onto the train with the help of the employee who had taken her bags. Jack handed the guitar up to her. She got in her seat just as the train began to move. She leaned the crutches on the empty seat next to her.   
  
She looked out the window. Her father was heading back into the building. Jack was still on the platform. He smiled when he saw her looking. Seriana turned away from the window and looked forward before closing her eyes. She didn't look back again.  
  
----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----  
  
Hey there... It occurs to me that I haven't talked much in my previous chapters. So, I suppose now would be a good time to introduce myself. Hi, I'm Stephanie, but you can call me Lamie. Oh wow! I just discovered that if I poke this one part on my leg, my stomach twitches. And you know how desprate I am to read something? I can't find any good fics, so I just went and read FFN's TOS. Now I know exactly what to do if I find someone trying to pass off my work as their own on this site. Man, I am lame.  
  
I've only got two fanfics going at this point in time. This one, and Planets Collide- a crossover between Sailor Moon, DragonBall Z, Tenchi Muyo, and Roswell. Go read it!! (shamelss advertising.) The rest of my fics are goofy little things, except for one Gundam Wing/Sailor Moon crossover, which I really didn't like too much when I was writing it.   
  
If you want, you can check me out at Fiction Press. My name is Lamie there too. Things over there that I suggest reading: Tara (vampires!), Hunter, Easter (just plain disturbing)   
  
You know, this is why I don't do author's notes. I always tend to ramble on and on about things that have NOTHING to do with the story.  
  
Anyway, to do with the story, I will begin with responding to reviews I have received. Before I begin, I want to thank you for reviewing- yes, all 5 of you... -_-  
  
ophelia- ah, non non non! She can't manipulate people with her mind, she does something else....  
  
Wink At J00- Steph! Thanks for reading my fic, it really means a lot to me. The note here to you is the shortest 'cause I can talk to you IRL if I want. ^_^  
  
darkangel1986- You know, that is an interesting point that I have never seen brought up before. The only reason I would never make someone that perfect is because I find it inhuman. No one is that perfect, and even though I usually write very unrealistic things, I like to keep my characters realistic.  
  
Mistress of Dragons- I love music. I've always felt it to be one of the most powerful influences in our world. That's one of the reasons I chose to make it Seriana's power (ooh, I hope I didn't ruin the surprise for anyone! But if you didn't figure her power out yet, then I don't want you reading this fic. ...I lied. I want you. PLEASE COME BACK!) Thanks for telling me about your fanfic. I really enjoyed reading it. EVERYONE! Go read Mistress of Dragons' fic "Glimpses." It totally rocks. Definatly my favorite serious plot Evo fic.   
  
Demoness Yasha Helfire- No one has called my character a Mary Sue yet. I don't expect anyone will. I was just worried that I would be fulfilling the Mary Sue steriotype while writing the first chapter. Now that I'm further into the story, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with the concept of creating an OC.  
  
Oh, and don't worry, your secret's safe with me. I sent you the list of Latin phrases through the e-mail you have on your FFN bio. If that's the wrong e-mail, just tell me so in your next review. Ha! So now you have to review again! ...unless you DID get the list of Latin phrases, in that case I am depending on the kindness in your heart for you to review :-)  
  
I'm not sure if I'm going to have a love interest. It depends on people's reactions. I dunno what do you, the viewers at home, think? Should I have a love interest for Seriana? Who? I have a list of people who will definatly not be a love interest. They are as follows: Kurt (Nightcrawler), Scott (Cyclops), Remy (Gambit), John (Pyro). Lance is almost on the list. If it weren't for my Lancitty tendancies, he might just be an interest. The reason Scott is on the list is because he and Jean annoy me. They should be together so they can be their goody-goody whiny selves together and not transfer that lame-o perfection to anyone they are romantically entangled with. But, if you have any ideas for a love interest, just tell me.  
  
Yeah, I totally ramble on too much in ANs. Tell me "Shut up and write the fic!" in your reviews. 


	5. V

Mutated Music  
  
by Lamie  
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
This fic brought to you by the cool, sweet sounds of Evanescence. Without them, this fic would never be possible.   
  
Also, sorry for the long delay in getting this chapter up. I've been busy with band, and getting my summer project for English done. But now that school's started, I'll have time to work on this story when my teachers are doing their best to bore everyone to death. *coughFRENCHcough*  
  
My sister and I just had an argument about what Kurt would play if he was in the band. We quickly eliminated the flute, clarinet, oboe, saxophone, or any other intstrument that requires all of your fingers. I thought that trumpet would be a good bet. My sister thought tuba. So we end up getting into a long drawn-out argument: "TUBA!" "TRUMPET!!" I think I may just have to make Kurt play the trumpet in this story. Teehee.  
  
----+----+----+----+----+--Chapter 5--+----+----+----+----+----  
  
The trip was shorter than Seriana expected it to be. About 15 minutes before the train stopped, the employee who had helped her with her bags back at the station approached her seat. "Your stop's coming up in a little bit, kid. You got someone waiting for you there?"  
  
Seriana kept a straight face and said "yes." After he walked away, she scowled. Where did he get off calling her "kid" and asking if she had someone waiting for her? He didn't ask anyone else in the car if someone was waiting for them. She was 17 years and 10 months old- practically an adult. The first time she was away from home by herself and she was already getting fussed over.   
  
She never considered that the fuss might be over the crutches, and not her age.  
  
After she got over the anger of being called "kid," she started to feel a little anxiety. What if there wasn't anyone waiting at the station? Jean had said that she and the professor would be waiting there for her, but what if they got the day wrong? What if she got the day wrong? Seriana remembered one time when her father's sister came to visit, and his dad forgot to go pick her up. Aunt Donna had waited at the airport for 5 hours.   
  
As they finally pulled into the station, Seriana sighed in releif when she breifly saw a flash of Jean's bright red hair.  
  
When the train came to a stop, her bags were taken off of the train for her, and she slowly limped down the steps of the train to the platform.   
  
((author's note: Guys, I'm really sorry about this, but at this point, I got the hugest case of writer's block. I didn't know what to write, so just use your imagination and insert your own bit about how Seriana gets to the institute with Jean and Professor X here.))  
  
When Seriana entered through the front door, a large group of kids her age were standing around, looking half-bored. She guessed that they were all students of the school, and that they were told to wait around to greet her. Seriana just wanted them to all go back to whatever they were doing before they crowded around the front doors. Just by their standing there, she felt like she was off to a bad start. The professor rolled on up next to Seriana and introduced her to everyone. She smiled weakly and allowed everyone to introduce themselves.   
  
Jean turned to Kitty and asked, "Can you show Seriana to her room?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
Everyone else started to leave and go back to wherever they were before. "Evan, Kurt, can you help carry her bags up?"  
  
2 boys walking away suddenly stopped short. "Oh man!" they both groaned.  
  
Seriana watched as the two of them grabbed her bags. The one with dark skin and blonde hair hastily picked up the guitar. "Be careful with that!" Seriana snapped.  
  
"Yeah, be careful!" the other boy said in a German accent.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"It's, uh, like this way," Kitty said, leading Seriana to the elevator. The dark skinned boy went with them, but the one with the blue-black hair and German accent didn't.   
  
Once the elevator stopped, Kitty led the two of them down the hall. "You're in the room next to me and Rogue."  
  
"Uh-huh," Seriana said while looking around the halls. Kitty opened the door. There were two beds in the room, the one closest to the door hadn't been made and a mess of clothes and CDs was skattered around it. The bed closer to the window looked kind of neglected- not in the sense that it was empty, because it was made up very nicely- but it just seemed like there hadn't been anybody to trash it, sleep in it, throw stuff on it, or hang out on it.   
  
The boy who hadn't gotten on the elevator with them was setting Seriana's suitcase on the bed closest to the window.   
  
"Kurt," the other boy scowled.   
  
Seriana made a mental note of his name.   
  
"That's, like, so cheating."  
  
Kurt grinned.   
  
"Wait, how'd you get up here? J'you run up the stairs?" Seriana looked straight at him.   
  
"No. Kurt's just cheating," Kitty scoffed.   
  
Seriana hobbled over to the bed that didn't have her suitcase on it. She leaned the crutches against the bed. The other boy set the guitar down next to her on the bed.   
  
"How'd he cheat?" Seriana looked over to Kurt, who was still grinning. Suddenly, there was a puff of smoke and a strange smell, and Kurt was gone. She barely had time to react before he re-appeared in the same smoke and smell on the other side of the room. "Holy god!" Seriana moved a little in surprise. The jolting of the mattress caused the crutches to fall to the floor with a muffled clatter. "So I... I guess that's why you're here?"   
  
"Well," he said, only with his accent, it sounded more like 'vell.' "That's part of it."  
  
"What's the other part?"  
  
"Why don't we save that for another time?" came a male voice from the doorway.  
  
"Hey, Scott," Kitty greeted. Seriana looked and saw the a taller person with red sunglasses. She had noticed the sunglasses earlier and fought the urge to ask about them. She was sure that she'd get a long, drawn-out response when she only wanted a simple one sentence answer.  
  
"Are you getting situated ok, Seriana?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, sure..." The truth was that she wasn't getting situated very well. She had been in the institute for less than 10 minutes, and she was already freaking out. She always thought that she'd be perfectly calm if she ever met a mutant. She had always been open to differences- race, religion, ect- and when the knowledge of mutants became more widespread, she found herself accepting towards that as well. That was in theory, of course. Now that she was actually speaking to them and seeing what set them apart, she was a little freaked. "So, Kitty... what can you do?"  
  
"Watch this." Kitty put her hand against the wall. Seriana expected her to move the wall or something, but instead , she just leaned her entire arm through the wall.  
  
"yee...." Seriana made a small scratchy noise with her throat.  
  
"Show her what you can do, Evan."  
  
Seri watched as wooden spikes shot out from his arm. She was glad that she was sitting down so that she wouldn't fall over in shock. "And, uh, what about you, Scott?" she asked hesitantly.  
  
"You'll see soon enough," he said before walking away from the doorway.  
  
"Do I want to see?"  
  
"It's not that bad," Evan said.  
  
"What can you do?" Kurt asked.  
  
"I don't know." She shrugged and scooted herself back so that her ankle was propped up on the bed. "It's nowhere near as cool as what you guys did."  
  
"You don't know?"  
  
"Nope. But whatever I can do, I've already..." her voice trailed off. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the article she tore from the newspaper and gave it to Kurt. Kitty and Evan crowded around him to read it.  
  
"Whoa," Kurt said. Seri knew that if Ryu were there, she would be making squealy noises and repeating 'how cute!' about a billion times because of his accent, even if he did do the poofy-smokey disappearing act.   
  
"I was playing my solo at the time, and I just kinda wished something bad would happen to them."  
  
"Maybe it's some sort of, like, mind control thing. You know, like those snake charmers use the music to make the snake, like, move out of it's basket."  
  
"Maybe," Seriana mumbled.   
  
"Well," Kurt said. "Would you like the tour."  
  
"Um, sure."  
  
"We'll give you the shortened one, so you don't have to, like, walk around on with those crutches so much."  
  
They showed Seriana around, and after less than five minutes, Seri noticed that Evan wasn't with them anymore. "Where'd Evan go?"  
  
"Probably skateboarding," Kitty sighed. "He does that a lot. You'll see him one minute, and then like the next, he's off."  
  
"And now the best part," Kurt said. He opened the door that was behind him. "The kitchen!"  
  
After being showed around, Seriana returned to her room, feeling totally overwhelmed. She set her violin and new guitar on the floor by the window, and her flute on the window seat. Boxes packed with tape were set in the corner by the door. She guessed her computer and keyboard were in them. "I'll unpack later," she sighed. "This is a lot." Her ankle hurt from moving around so much. She propped her leg up on the bed and unwrapped it. The bruising was starting to fade, leaving behind a yellowish-green color. The swelling wasn't going down yet, though. It still looked the size of a baseball.   
  
She started to re-wrap it when the door swung open and someone waltzed on in. "Hey, roomie," the girl said.  
  
"Roomie?" Seriana questioned, while continuing to wrap her ankle.   
  
"Yeah! Roomie!" the girl answered. "In case you've forgotten, or in case you've done the totally normal thing and didn't pay attention, I'm Tabitha."  
  
"Yeah, I didn't pay any attention earlier. I figured that if I needed to learn any names, I'd do it to my own accord."  
  
"Good idea." Tabitha sat down on the clothes on the other bed. "This your junk?" she asked pointing to the boxes.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"You gonna get them off my side of the room?"  
  
"Eventually."  
  
"So," Tabitha flopped backwards onto the bed, and then rolled over to lay on her stomach. She propped her head up with a pillow. "How do you like it here so far?"  
  
"I'm not really sure... It's kinda ok."   
  
She laughed.  
  
"What's so funny?" Seriana asked.  
  
"Nothing. It's just... 'kinda ok.' That's how I'd describe it. Sometime's it's ok, other times you..."  
  
"...you what?"  
  
"You just wanna run away and... join the Brotherhood or somethin' like that. But don't do that. That's the best advice I can give you."  
  
"The... brotherhood? What's that?"  
  
"You'll find out soon enough."  
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
For the next week, Seriana spent most of her time getting used to life in Bayville. She stayed at the institute and waited for her ankle to heal before going to school.   
  
The afternoon of her arrival, she began working with the professor to find out what exactly she could do.   
  
"Hank and I have a theory about your abilities."  
  
"You and wh-- eek!!" Seriana exclaimed upon seeing the blue ape-like person for the first time.  
  
"Nice to meet you," he said politely.  
  
"I never knew a mutation could make a person look so, uh, strange. No offence or anything," she added quickly.   
  
"None taken. So I assume you haven't seen Kurt yet?"  
  
"I have, but what does that have to do with-"  
  
"Image inducer on, no doubt."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Kurt-"  
  
"Will show Seriana when he's ready to," Professor Xavier interjected. "Now, Seriana. I beleive you've got telekinetic abilities."  
  
"Huh?" she repeated. "Does that mean that I can make things happen?"  
  
"Very simply, yes. But we believe that this telekinesis developed differently than other mutants with this same power."  
  
"Different... You mean through my music?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"See, I thought it might be. There was a cup that moved when I was singing in the hospital last week."  
  
"Would you like to try again, Seriana?"  
  
"Try... making stuff happen?"  
  
"Of course nothing as drastic as what happened during the concert. We'll try for something smaller, like you did with the cup."  
  
"What do I need to do?"  
  
"Focus on a small object, and just try to make it move."  
  
Seriana looked at a pencil that was on a table on the other side of the room. She focused and thought things like "move pencil!"  
  
When this didn't work, the professor repeated his instructions, but this time told her to sing a tune while focusing. Seriana sang "Twinkle twinkle little star." Before she reached the word "wonder," the pencil had shot off the table and embedded itself in the wall.  
  
"Oops... Sorry. But hey! Look! I did it!"  
  
She had a session every day for a week with similar results. Sometimes she wouldn't sing, sometimes she would use her flute or violin. She had major control problems; she'd end up playing the same song three times over while trying to pull a single book off the shelves with no results, but then suddenly with no warning or change in Seriana's demeaner, every book would come pouring off of the shelves all at once.   
  
The more she attempted to develop her powers, the more they liked to surprise her. Wednesday afternoon, when all the other students were still at school, Seriana took advantage of the quiet and practiced her violin. She was about three measures into a song before all of the dresser drawers in the entire building shot open and all of the clothes flew out onto the floor. You can imagine everyone's reactions when they got home from school.  
  
Seriana's powers wer not the only thing she had to adjust to. The huge new house she lived in, and the people she shared it with were difficult to adapt to. Tabitha made for an... interesting roommate. Seriana eventually learned everyon's name, code name, and powers. A few kept trying to help her find her own code name, but she kept insisting that she wait until she had better control over her powers.   
  
"You could go without a code name," Jean suggested.  
  
"You could go by just a code name," Rogue suggested.  
  
Seriana kindly declined both.  
  
It was on her first morning in the Institute that she got to see the real Kurt. He was at the end of the hall when Seri stepped out of her room. She called out to him, "Hey, Kurt, come here!" He disappeared and reappeared in front of her. "Don't DO that!" she said while catching her breath.  
  
"Sorry. What is it you wanted?"  
  
"I was talking to the professor and.. um, oh yeah, Mr. McCoy yesterday, and we were talking about how, er... he mentioned something called an image inducer?"  
  
"Oh, that. I suppose now's as good as ever. Promise not to freak?"  
  
"I can't promise that. I mean, what if it's fairly freak-some?"  
  
"Promise to only freak a little, then?"  
  
"I'll do my best."  
  
Kurt pressed something on his watch. A strange static look covered him and shortly after, a strange blue demon-y thing stood before her. "This is the real me. The other was a disguise to make me look normal."  
  
"Oh...kay. That is pretty freaky. But, alright. Let's go down to breakfast."  
  
----+----+----  
  
Seriana began to gain better control over her abilities more amd more each day. By Satuday, her 5th day there, she was actually able to calmly levitate a single book off of the shelves and set it on a table. She practiced her music, and nothing unexpectidly flew around the room. Around the same time, her ankle started feeling a lot better. She kept the wrap on, but stopped using the crutches. Her plan was to go to school on Monday with the other students from the institute. There, she'd get registered and make out a schedule, and she'd finally be on her way to having a whole new life in Bayville.   
  
----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----  
  
Ok, this chapter I'm beginning to worry. This is the main reason I don't write fanfics often: I'm afraid that I'm portraying the characters wrong. I know I'm not including Kurt's accent with spelling. You're creative, you can imagine it. I'm also worried that I'm not doing Kitty's valley-girl speak right. Too many 'like's? To little? There's another problem: I talk like Kitty alot, with a ton of 'like's, and so if I write the dialouge like I normally talk, then it seems like Kitty is saying everything.   
  
I'm doing my best to portray these characters accuratly.   
  
Like, review please. Lamie 


	6. VI

Wow. Sorry it's been so long updating. I've just been kinda busy with school and if I stay off a story for a while, I lose interest and ideas, and then it just sits there for months. This story is a very good example. Y'all can thank WinkyBells for reviewing and inspiring me to write more. "Write more" - yeah right. All I've done so far is write authors notes. Okay. Here's story:  
  
----+----+----+----+----+--Chapter 6--+----+----+----+----+----  
  
"You ready to go to school tomorrow?" Tabitha asked Seriana while they were about to go to bed Sunday night.   
  
"I guess."  
  
"Well, when you get tired of it, I can show you all of my ditching secrets."  
  
In the morning, Seriana was surprised when Professor X told her that he would be accompanying her to the school.  
  
While waiting in the office at Bayville High School, the professor said to her "Principal Kelly is going to try to keep you from enrolling, but it's a public school, so he has no way to keep anyone from attending- unless of course you do something wrong. You must be very careful here, and watch your step."  
  
Just as he had said, Kelly did try to keep her from registering, but eventually they broke him down and Seriana was allowed to enroll. Principal Kelly didn't seem at all thrilled that another mutant was in his school.  
  
"Let's see..." Seriana mumbled while looking at the course listings. Kelly had left the two of them to work out her schedule. "Classes are so different here in New York! ...I'll need American Literature... American History, chemistry, geometry... Band of co-"  
  
"Seriana, wait."   
  
"What?"   
  
"I don't want you talking any music courses."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Not until you've got better control. Once you've established your abilities, then you can take music classes."  
  
"Fine. I'll just take... French," she said bitterly. She wasn't really fine with it though, and Xavier could tell (cause he's a telepath, DUH.)  
  
The guidance counsilor spent at least 10 minutes processing Seriana's class choices before she had a schedule ready for her. "I'll take you to your first class," the counsilor offered.   
  
"Thanks." Seriana was still bitter about not being allowed to take any music.  
  
She hoped that the first period teacher wasn't completly crazy and wouldn't make her stand in the front of the room and do a 'getting to know you' sort of thing. Sophomore year, her biology teacher was totally insane and made all of the students take "personality quizzes" so that she could 'know her students inside and out.' Yeah, because you can get to know a person through 15 multiple choice questions.   
  
To her relief, her first period class seemed like a real snoozer. Everyone looked really tired when she walked in. History is not a subject anyone should have first period.  
  
The teacher pointed to a desk near the back of the classroom. "You can sit back there," he said, sounding very much like he didn't want to be there.  
  
Seriana slunk to the back of the room into the desk. Writing was scribbled all over the desk in various handwriting. One seemed to stand out in its red ink: "Jean G. is a slut"  
  
The teacher began talking about some sort of history. She had a feeling that most of the students didn't have a clue about what he was saying. Her entire day went like that. From history to literature and another class that by the time lunch rolled around she couldn't even remember what it was. Lunch was definately the most interesting part of her day. She had been sitting at a table by herself for less than 2 minutes before someone approached her. First, it was 3 boys. "You're new, aren't you?" one of them asked.  
  
The boy didn't seem like total dorks, and they didn't seem like jocks ether- a combination that a person would usually need in order for Seriana to talk to someone, but the combination of having a boring day and not being allowed to take any music classes had put her in a terrible mood. "Congratulations, you win the grand prize. Would you like one lump sum or receive payments for the next 20 years?"  
  
"Sheesh, we're just trying to be nice. Being a bitch won't get you anywhere around here," the same one who had talked before said.   
  
Less than 5 minutes passed before someone else approached her. "You're not one of those... freaks, are you?"  
  
Seriana didn't even dignify the question with an answer.   
  
Once she was alone, she stared down at her bowl of ham and potatoes and began to hum a small tune. The chunks of so-called ham swam around the potatoes in the bowl in a small dance.   
  
"You look bored." Someone else had approached her table. This time, it was Rogue.   
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Having fun yet?" She took a seat next to Seriana.   
  
"Oh. Tons." She poked at the potatoes with her fork.  
  
"Rule number one of surving this place: Never eat the meat."   
  
"I'll remember that." She continued to poke at the food. "When are music classes?"  
  
"Oh... I think that band is 5th period. That's usually when I hear 'em."   
  
"If I were to... suddenly take up a music class, do you think that professor would find out?"  
  
"Pro'lly. He has a knack for that kinda stuff."  
  
Seriana bit her lip. "This isn't fair."  
  
"You just gotta wait until you're in better control, then he'll letcha take 'em."  
  
"It's still not fair. I'm in good enough control for now."  
  
Rogue adjusted her glove and then stood up. "Do you want to wander the halls with me?"  
  
"Sure. It's gotta be better than this."  
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
The two girls walked around the halls for a while, ducking teachers and hall monitors.   
  
"Can you show me the music room?" Seriana asked after they had finished hiding in a cigarette smoke filled bathroom.  
  
"You're really set on this music stuff, ain'tcha?"  
  
"Music's really all I've got. I mean, it's so much a part of me that my mutation... mutated to adapt to it."  
  
"I g-"  
  
"Hey, Rogue!" A voice called out from a hallway to the right of them.  
  
"Oh, christ..." Rogue mumbled as a few people approached her and Seriana. "What are you delinquents doing here? Shouldn't you be off destroying something?"  
  
Seriana looked at the 3 people Rogue was talking to. One was- well, there's no polite way to put it- FAT. One had a mullet, and the last one was kind of hunched over and smelled.  
  
"Destroying? Nah," the mullet-boy said. "We've got too much important learning to do."  
  
"How come you're not in class then?" Seriana dared.   
  
The three boys looked at her.  
  
"Who's this?"   
  
Rogue began to speak, "She's-"  
  
"I'm Seriana."  
  
"New X-geek?" Mullet-boy asked.  
  
"That's none of your business."  
  
"It is too," the short one snapped.  
  
"Is not."  
  
((A/N: I'd now like to take this opportunity to present to you a deleted scene:  
  
"Is not not not!"  
  
"Is too too too!"  
  
"Is chot chot chot!"  
  
"Is choo choo choo!"  
  
"Hahahahah, you sound like a train!"))  
  
Seriana started to walk away. She decided that the four of them obviously had some sort of a past, and she didn't want to get involved in it. The mullet-boy started to walk after her. "Lance, just stay away, why don'tcha?"   
  
He ignored her and said to Seriana, " You're living with the x-geeks, huh? So what can you do?"  
  
"Lance, just-" Rogue started to walk after them. The fat boy and the hunched over one followed  
  
"You don't want to know."  
  
"Come on, can't be worse than what I can do."  
  
She stopped walking and turned around to narrow her eyes at him. Lance stopped. So did Rogue and the two others. "Let's put it this way: One word from these lips-" she pointed to her mouth to emphasise her point, "-and your skull could implode in on your brain." Seriana turned quickly spun back around, causing the very end of her pony tail to hit Lance's nose. Rogue followed after her.   
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
The rest of Seriana's day went mostly okay. Boring, but okay. She scowled for most of 5th period. Her class for that period was near the band room, and she could hear them practicing. She focused, and she could hear every wrong note that the trumpets made. She could hear when a clarinet was out of tune. She could tell what key they were playing in. And she imagined what problems could have swept the school if she were in there playing along.   
  
She scraped along, just trying to get to the end of 8th period- the time when she would be set free. 8th period was geometry, and the second she walked into the classroom, she knew that it would probably be the worst class of the day. Not only was mullet-boy Lance in that classroom, but the seat that the teacher assigned was in the very back of the room, right next to him.   
  
As the teacher finally began the lesson after getting Seriana situated, Lance leaned over and whispered, "You gonna show me how you can make my skull implode?"  
  
Seriana definatly felt the urge to do just that and she was pretty sure that she wouldn't regret it. Instead, she decided on something else. She began to hum a short tune as softly as she could so that no one would hear. Within two seconds every thumbtack and pushpin in the room had fallen to the floor, taking down several posters. She smirked and shot a smug look at Lance before quickly acting confused and astonished like all the other kids in the classroom.  
  
Once the teacher (who was incredibly dense and never for a second that the incident had anything to do with mutants) had settled everyone down and stacked all the posters on a filing cabinet in the corner, Lance has decided to show off what he could do. Seriana pretended to be interested in the lesson that was most likely about triangles, but might have had something to do with circles. "Hey, psst!" She heard a whisper come from her right. "Watch."  
  
Seriana pretended not to be very interested, but watched him out of the corner of her eye. For a second, he looked almost like he was about to have a seizure. In the front of the classroom, she saw the filing cabinet that the posters had been set on began to shake, and for the second time the posters fell to the floor.   
  
Seri silently giggled.   
  
Maybe this new school wouldn't be so terribly awful after all.  
  
----+----+----+----+----+--End of Chapter 6--+----+----+----+----+----  
  
I feel kinda weird writing this story. Especially since I haven't watched Evo in months upon months, and I haven't seen any new eppies cause I've only seen the ones they've aired on Cartoon Network... oh well, I feel like writing, so I write... even though I'm afraid that this chapter seems really slow.   
  
Also- if you're going to make suggestions about who a love interest should be, PLEASE read the list of people who will NOT be love interests; They are Kurt, Scott, Remy, John, and probably not Lance. Thank you.  
  
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people spell Rogue's name "Rouge". THAT IS NOT ROGUE! THAT IS THE FRENCH WORD FOR "RED"!!!  
  
I do appreciate reviews very much.  
  
-+-Lamie-+- 


	7. VII

----+----+----+----  
  
Mutated Music   
  
by Lamie  
  
----+----+----+----  
  
You like the warning in my summary? It just bugs me that people put warnings that there are gay relationships and stuff like that in their summaries. Maybe it would be okay on the inside once the reader chooses to click on the link and read the story, but on the main FFN page... it just bugs me. I feel that if people need to have a warning that there are homosexual relationships, then why not a warning that there are heterosexual relationships?   
  
Okay, here's some review responses:  
  
fragmentpieces - All hail the flute goddess! All other flutes bow down before thee. ^_^ I didn't start flute until 5th grade, so I didn't know that about the lung thing. I'll have to change that in my story. I like getting comments like that, they help me make my story more believable (if you can believe that someone can move things just by playing an instrument.)  
  
WinkyBells and Mistress of Dragons - I don't really have anything in particular to say to you, sorry. But thanks for reading ^_^  
  
----+----+----+----+----+--Chapter 7--+----+----+----+----+----  
  
Seriana stared at the flyer. She looked to her right, then her left. She bit her left thumbnail.  
  
Tryouts for the end-of-the-school-year musical were coming up. She could do it, at least try out. And if she made it, yay for her. Practices would probably be almost every day, and last very late into the evening. Everyone back at the institute would probably wonder where she was so late every day. But it wasn't any of their business. They didn't need to know that she would be singing on a daily basis. Especially the professor. He was the last one who needed to know. But how to keep a secret from a telepath?  
  
She sighed heavily and gave up on the idea of the musical. She had been staring at the flyer for so long, she had missed the bell and was now late to 8th period.   
  
She didn't really care about the class anyway. 8th period was when she felt her bravest. The teacher was a total ditz, and someone else was there to make her feel not so alone (even though he skipped the class most of the time.) She yawned and picked a piece of lint off of her green sweater before beginning to walk to room 210.  
  
"So, ya gonna try out?"   
  
Seriana whirled around and saw Tabitha leaning against the wall where the flyer was. "I can't."  
  
"And why not?"  
  
"Professor X said that I wasn't allowed to be in band or any other m-"  
  
"Yeah, you gotta learn that there are some things that you can keep from a mind reader. Just gotta know how to keep it offa your mind."  
  
"Are you encouraging me to break the rules?"  
  
"Nah, I'm... encouraging you to follow your dreams."   
  
Seriana looked at Tabitha suspiciously before deciding to walk away to class. Something was different about her, but Seri couldn't figure out what it was.   
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
A week later, she was alone on the stage, spotlight staring her down, and the mic was on. She had been waiting for her audition time for almost 3 hours, but it was finally her turn.   
  
"Um, I'm not doing the monologue because I- uh, I'm trying out for featured soloist."  
  
"Alright then," the director said from a chair in the audience. "Whenever you're ready."   
  
Seriana composed herself for a few seconds, and then began to sing. Her voice filled the auditorium and floated out into the empty hallways.   
  
She maintained control. Nothing mysteriously moved by itself.  
  
The audition piece was soon halfway over, and Seriana was feeling confident. Not only in her singing ability and in the chance that she would get the part, but also in her powers. For the first time in over a month, she was singing publicly- in front of people she barely knew, in front of people who knew nothing about her powers, in front of people who didn't know that she had killed two people back in Pennsylvania.   
  
And then, it happened. She didn't even realise something was happening until she was finishing the last note of the last word, but by then, most of the damage was already done, and when she realised what she had started, she was panicing too much to try to stop it.  
  
It started in the back of the auditorium. The celing was slowly crumbling. Cracks spread from one point, and traveled to the front, near the stage. By the time they got to the stage celing, Seriana had stopped her audition and started watching the damage that was beginning. Small chunks of plaster were falling the auditorium floor   
  
The other students who were gathered in the large room for auditons were starting to leave in a hurry. The director stood up and clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "Let's CALMLY exit the auditorium!" she yelled while ushering out the students who hadn't already decided to run at the sight of the crumbling celing.   
  
Seriana looked up at the celing, rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Why can't I go to a school with a decent roof?" she thought while being the only one who calmly walked to the exit. As soon as she got out into the hallway, the entire celing faultered and colapsed to the rows and rows of chairs with a huge crash. Clouds of plaster dust puffed out of the open auditorium doors into the hallway where all of the drama students stood in amazement.  
  
----+----+----+----+----  
  
It had been something like "Seriana, you could have killed---" and "--no powers for 6 weeks--" and "-probation--" and a bunch of other words she kind of blocked out of her mind after Professor X's lecture to her was over.   
  
It was past midnight, and she was still awake, staring at the celing and thinking about what had happened. She honestly couldn't remember losing control. The entire time she was singing, it felt like she was just singing, and nothing more. But then again, it wasn't the first time that she thought she had control and something unexpected happened.   
  
Her thoughts floated back to part of her lecture. "You could have killed somebody." Was it possible? Could she have repeated her past mistake? She sighed out in a slight disbelieving tone.   
  
"Hey, girl. You still awake?" Seriana heard Tabitha's familiar voice come from the other side of the room.   
  
"Just a little."   
  
"Pretty wicked stunt you pulled today."  
  
"Yeah. Didn't really mean to. Too late now."  
  
"So what happened?"  
  
"I dunno. Lost control, I guess."  
  
"What I wanna know is how does someone crash down a whole celing and not know how they did it."  
  
"It wasn't the first time, you know. I've got a problem with celings, I guess."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"I didn't tell you? Back home, I was doing this concert thing, and my ex and his new fling were..." Seriana stopped and sighed. "...Anyway, I ended up accidentally crashing the roof in on them. They both died."  
  
"You're shitting me!"  
  
"Kinda wish I was. I felt bad about it then, but..."  
  
"But what?"  
  
"This time... I've been thinking about this. Before it was just Paul and Rebecca, but this time, even if it had been every one in that room except me who was crushed, I... I probably wouldn't have felt bad about it."  
  
"Not at all?"  
  
"Well... yeah, a little. But probably only-- oh, man, this is going to sound so selfish..."  
  
"Go 'head, shoot."  
  
"I'd probably only feel bad about it if I got in trouble and ended up getting privilages and stuff taken away from me."  
  
Tabitha said nothing for a while. And then, "Hey, maybe we'll have school off tomorrow. You know, if you damaged the electricity or water pipes enough."  
  
"Uh-huh," Seriana sighed before rolling over and finally falling asleep.   
  
----+----+----+----+----+--end of chapter 7--+----+----+----+----+----  
  
Its kind of a short chapter. I was gonna have more, but I got writers block in this one part I'm currently writing, and I might just go back and delete it... so I figured that until I get that part worked out, I'll publish the part that I am keeping.  
  
Hopefully I'll have the next chapter out sometime within the next week or so.   
  
Please respond/review. 


	8. VIII

Sheesh. I was planning on having this chapter out a few days after the last. Now it's like 2 months. Several reasons for delays: At first, I was tragically struck down by a really bad cold in which I could barely breathe or eat, and every time I went to get up to go anywhere, my vision blurred and I got really dizzy. I stayed home from school on Thursday and Friday and watched every single thing on my X-Men and X-2 DVDs. I watched X-2 almost 4 times on Thursday- sometimes with commentary, sometimes in French.... I probably could recite every line in that movie now.   
  
There was this one little featurette thingy, where this guy who wrote some Nightcrawler comics was talking. And he was asked to say something little known about Nightcrawler, and he said something like "You know how he has 2 fingers and 2 toes, well, there's somethingelse he has two of." I was sitting there, blowing my nose for the 17 billionth time, thinking "PLEASE let him be talking about eyes...."  
  
And then after I got better from that, I just kinda felt unmotivated to write. And then I got this new computer on which I can play this terribly addicting game- Runescape. And then there was Graduation. And then… well, you're lucky I got this chapter out   
  
Anyway, here's chapter 8:  
  
----------------------Chapter 8----------------------  
  
Turns out that Tabitha had been right. The school was now a real danger zone. Some very important pipes travelled through the auditorium celing, and not only was the room filled with debris, but it was also flooded from burst pipes. Broken electrical wires didn't make it any safer.   
  
Kurt spent 5 minutes teleporting from room to room to alert everyone that school had been cancelled. When Seriana found out, she yawned and idly thought "At least I got everyone a nice vacation. And I didn't even have to kill anyone this time."  
  
Everyone was awake even though though there was no school. It was a hectic mess with everyone around. Sure, there had been days when everyone was around the mansion- they were called weekends. But on the weekends, everyone usally had some sort of plan. This day, however, was a spontaneous home-staying. No one had anywhere to go or anything to do.   
  
As Seriana walked around in her usual morning routine, she noticed that everyone was avoiding her a little more than usual. Maybe they were afraid of what she would do.   
  
After eating breakfast, Seriana joined Rogue, Kitty, Bobby, Amara and Roberto in front of the TV. When she entered the room, she heard Kitty talking: "--standing around my locker, like, all the time. And last night, I could have sworn I heard his jeep drive by."  
  
"Restraining order," Rogue mumbled and turned up the volume on the TV.   
  
"I'm not getting a restraining order," Kitty scoffed. "I just wish he'd, like, SAY something instead of lurking around."   
  
Everyone except Kitty seemed to be in a daze. Their eyes stared at the TV. None of them even liked the program. "What are you watching?" Kitty asked.  
  
"I dunno." Roberto shlumped further down into the armchair.  
  
Rogue picked up the remote and was about to change the station when Scott came through the door and clapped his hands together. "Guess what, guys!" He said energetically. "Training session!"  
  
Everyone groaned except for Seriana, who had never had one before. "Wha--" she began to ask as everyone slouched out of the room.  
  
"This is your first one," Scott said. Seri could tell he was trying to act a little intimidating. "So we'll go easy on you." He handed her a box. "Suit up and meet us in the Danger room."  
  
'That sounds safe,' she thought.   
  
--------------------  
  
She stood in a line against the wall with the other new recruits. She pulled at the tight fitting material of the suit she was wearing. It snapped back to her skin.   
  
"Why are we wearing these?" she casually asked Tabitha.   
  
"Because they're our uniforms," Bobby said proudly.  
  
Scott walked over, pointed to Seriana and said, "Okay, no powers for you, so just try to defend yourself and stay out of harm's way." Seriana rolled her eyes as he walked away. It reminded her of the one episode of Seinfeld with the soup nazi- "No soup for you!"  
  
The machines started up, and the simple sounding plan of staying out of harm's way was harder than she ever thought. It made her slightly envious- hopping around helplessly, while everyone else blowing stuff up or melting it or freezing it....   
  
It went on for almost an hour, and once it was over, Seri collapsed to the floor to rest. She thought her insides were gonna find their way to the outside.   
  
"First time a bit rough, huh?" Tabitha loomed over her, looking abnormally happy for what they had just done. "Come on, I'll take you upstairs."  
  
"I don't really remember my first time," she said as they headed to their shared room, "But I'm sure it wasn't too fun."  
  
Seri flopped backwards onto her bed and stared blankly at the celing. Her leg itched but she was too tired to scratch it.  
  
"So, you wanna do something later? We can go to the mall, let's go to the mall! It'll be fun!"   
  
"Ehhh...." Seriana moaned lightly.   
  
"Still tired, huh? Well, you'll get used to it quick. I'm actually surprised you haven't had to go for a session before this. You sure you don't want to go to the mall?"  
  
"Lemmie rest for a bit, and then we'll go."   
  
--------------------  
  
For a second it seemed she was home. But her house was beautiful. The paint was perfect, the curtains hung evenly in the windows, the front stairs weren't crumbling. The small gardens weren't overgrown with weeds, instead, they were gorgeous with their perfectly groomed flowers of bright colors. Sunflowers were growing in a small spot on the corner of the flower bed on the side of the house.   
  
There was only one problem: Seriana knew this wasn't her house. Still, she walked around the outside of it, looking at every detail of it, a dozen times. On the last time, when she reached the front sidewalk, Jack was standing there. He didn't have his scraggly hair or lazily unshaven face. His clothes were neat and looked like something the probably wouldn't wear unless his guitar's life depended on it.   
  
"What are you doing here?" she asked him.  
  
"Are you kidding? I live here," he responded.  
  
"But I don't live here..." Seri responded dreamily.  
  
Jack's face turned violent. He suddenly pushed her shoulders harshly, making her stumble to the ground. "You could never live here," he growled.  
  
Seriana pulled herself to her feet and glanced at the house, and the house looked just as she had left it before leaving for New York: The weeds, the peeling paint, the dirty, tattered curtains and the 4 front stairs that were missing a board on the second step. She turned around and looked at Jack. He too suddenly looked just as she had remembered him, with his 'just got out of bed' look. "Now we are home," he said very kindly. "Go ahead." He gently nudged her in the direction of the house.   
  
"You lead," she instructed.  
  
Jack took her hand and the two of them walked towards the house. When they got to the door, Seriana reached for the doorknob and-  
  
She woke with a start. The lights were off, the curtains were closed and the room was dark. Seri glanced over at the clock by her bed, the glowing red numbers said 7:13. It was a "bad time" as Ryu would say. Ryu loved numbers and with every time that there was, she would like to find patterns in them, for example, with 6:42, 6 minus 4 is 2. Seriana could see no pattern in 7:13.  
  
She walked out into the hallway, and asked the first person she saw- Rogue- where Tabitha had gone. "I dunno," she answered. "Haven't seen her for a while."  
  
"Probably went to the mall already. Heyyy, Rogue, how would you like to go to the mall?"  
  
--------------------  
  
Seri walked the crowded halls alone. Rogue had declined her invitation, so Seriana had walked alone. She had been over the whole mall twice, and didn't see Tabitha at all. She was just about to leave when someone called out to her.  
  
"Oh no," she groaned. She spun around to see Lance and his buddies. "Haven't seen you in a while,"  
  
"Yeah, I've been skipping a lot lately. And speaking of school, I saw what you did to the auditorium."  
  
"That was an accident."  
  
"Pretty serious power you got there. And I thought it was just restricted to tormenting geometry teachers."  
  
"Just back off, okay?" Seriana started to walk away.   
  
"Hey, wait a second." Lance took a step and reached out to grab her arm. "Can we go somewhere to talk?"  
  
Seriana looked at him like he was totally insane.   
  
"Yo, what're you doin'?" Lance's one friend asked.  
  
"Shut up," he mumbled over his shoulder. "Go find some people to freak out." Lance's two friends- who Seriana had yet to be introduced to- sulked away. Once they had left, he turned to her and said in one of the most serious tones she had ever heard him use, "I see it in you, and you gotta get out."  
  
"What?" Seri was totally shocked.  
  
"It's that place you're at. People like us don't belong there."  
  
"What? Where I live? It's meant just for people-"  
  
"I don't mean mutants. Just because you're a mutant doesn't mean you have to be one of those X-geeks. They're too restricting for you. I bet you're not even allowed to use your powers because of what happened."  
  
"I technically haven't even been allowed to sing or anything like that outside of the institute since I got there."  
  
"You want out?"  
  
"What!?"  
  
"Do you want to leave?"  
  
"Where would I go?"  
  
"Come live with us. You'd make us a half-dozen strong."   
  
"Do I want to know who 'us' is?"  
  
"Me and Toad and Blob and everyone."  
  
It was then that a thought crossed Seriana's mind. Lance and those other two were part of that Brotherhood thing that Tabitha had warned Seriana about when she first arrived. And then another thought crossed her mind: she might actually do it.   
  
----------------------end of chapter 8----------------------  
  
Another thing that kind of gets me upset on FFN summaries: "NO FLAMES!" It's like, "Well, I was thinking of horribly bashing this story, but it says I'm not allowed, so gosh darn it, I won't." ...Well, I suppose that's a good thing, cause maybe instead of saying stuff like "$&!!#$&$ U DONT NO HOW TO RITE! %#&#$%#&$" They'll say something like "Your original character was highly underdeveloped and you portrayed the canon characters completely wrong. Your grammar and punctuation had the same quality it would as if a giraffe wrote it. Also, I highly disagree with the pairing in this story, but that has nothing to do with the quality of your writing; perhaps I should find a story in which the paring I like exists." At least, in an ideal world that would happen. Also in an ideal world, I'd be getting more readers... COME ON HERE, PEOPLE! 


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